India Won’t Join BRI, Its Concept Won’t Apply to Us: Jaishankar

NEW DELHI: External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Friday shot down speculations on whether India would copy China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), reiterating New Delhi’s longstanding position on the project.

Responding to a question on the same, Jaishankar said at an interactive session at the World Economic Forum (WEF), “We are us and not just some other country. It’s not just in this initiative but in whole lot of areas. My own sense is as India becomes bigger, we will find concepts developed for other countries won’t necessarily apply to us. It’s not very likely we’ll copy models (from others).”

“We have a longstanding position on that. It is connected with sovereign matters. That has not changed,” he added.
Last month, Jaishankar had said there would be no rethinking on India’s position on the BRI.
“BRI rethink, the answer is no,” the minister had said during a briefing on the 100-day achievements of the External Affairs Ministry under the second term of the Narendra Modi-led government.

India has time and again highlighted its concerns over the project, which has been labelled as a debt-trap by several leaders across the world.
New Delhi has previously said that no country can accept a project that ignores core concerns on territorial integrity.

Source: ToI

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